"A brilliant combat RPG drowning in checklist sludge"
About
Cloud and his party travel across an open world following their escape from Midgar, exploring diverse regions and towns while pursuing Sephiroth. You control Cloud in real-time combat encounters, manage a party of four characters with distinct abilities, and progress through a branching narrative with optional side quests and exploration that influence the story's direction.
Verdict
When Rebirth lets its combat and characters breathe it's one of the best action RPGs of the generation, with a battle system that gives every party member a genuinely distinct rhythm. Then Chadley starts talking, the map fills with icons, and you spend the next eight hours pushing boxes and skipping minigames to reach the next good scene. The masterpiece is real. So is the mountain you dig through to find it.
You'll like it if …
- +you want a real-time action RPG where each party member fights with a distinct rhythm
- +you sink into character-driven story and emotional set pieces between battles
- +you chase 100 percent completion and replay for it
You'll dislike it if …
- −open-world checklists and fetch quests between story beats wear you down
- −you want a self-contained story rather than setup for a future installment
- −constant narrator chatter interrupting exploration grates on you
Breakdown
- +Combat system gives each party member a distinct fighting language through parrying baseline and character-specific synergy attacks
- +Difficulty spike over Remake creates meaningful tactical room for party composition and ability timing
- −Open-world structure pads first playthrough with repetitive busywork and mandatory minigames that break momentum between story beats
- +Substantial content volume: 50 hours for story, significantly more for completion
- +Genuine replayability pull for completionists chasing 100 percent, with multiple playthroughs logged by many players
- −Second and third playthroughs become chores when confronted with the same open-world padding again
- −Narrative remains fragmented across games, with substantial runtime spent on foreshadowing rather than resolved character arcs
- +Cast carries real emotional weight, with voice work and characterisation that earn story payoffs
- +Strong character writing and emotional set pieces when the main story has room to unfold
- −Pacing undermined by constant Chadley narration and dialogue that interrupts exploration flow
- +Soundtrack is the most consistent element in the package, selling each region's identity more effectively than the environment art
- −Character models and particle effects hold up in highlights, but open world betrays console roots with muddy textures and visible LOD pop-in
- −Unreal Engine 5 switch left some areas looking worse than Remake
- −Post-launch update introduced fatal-error crashes that broke save files for some players
- −PC port is a liability: stutter and cutscene crashes occur across machines with adequate hardware
score
